A silver halide color photographic material is imagewise exposed and developed by an aromatic amine series color developing agent to form dye images by the reaction of the oxidized product of the color developing agent formed as the result of the development and dye image-forming couplers (hereinafter referred to as couplers). For a color photographic material, a combination of a yellow coupler, a cyan coupler, and a magenta coupler is usually used.
As the magenta coupler, a pyrazolone type coupler, a pyrazolobenzimidazole type coupler, an indazolone type coupler, and a pyrazoloazole type coupler including pyrazolotriazole are known. Additionally 4-equivalent magenta couplers requiring theoretically 4 mols of silver halide for forming 1 mol of a dye and a 2 equivalent couplers requiring 2 mols of silver halide for forming 1 mol of a dye are known.
These couplers form a so-called color stain by coloring the unexposed portions of the color photographic materials containing the couplers, with the passage of time after development processing regardless of the specific kind of magenta coupler utilized. However, the extent of color stain differs according to the processing process, the composition of the color developer, and the extent of the deterioration of the color developer. The formation of the color stain is severer in the 2-equivalent magenta coupler.
The stain at the unexposed portions of a silver halide color photographic material determines the quality of transparence of such portions of color images as well as reduces the visual sharpness of color images. In particular, in the case of reflection type photographic light-sensitive material (e.g., color photographic papers, reversal color photographic papers, etc.), the reflection density of stain is theoretically emphasized several times the transmission density, so that even slight stains can reduce the image quality.
Furthermore, the occurrence of such a color stain at the unexposed portions of a photograph by photographic processing can not be sufficiently prevented by using fading inhibitors such as hydroquinones, hindered phenols, tocopherols, chromans, coumarans, etc., since such color stains are different from so-called yellow stains formed by the decomposition of a coupler itself by light or heat.
However, a method of using a 2-equivalent 5-pyrazolone type magenta coupler together with a specific aniline compound for inhibiting the occurrence of undesired magenta color stain is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,919. It has also been proposed to use compounds capable of forming a substantially colorless product, by reacting with a developing agent or the oxidation product of a developing agent capable of forming a dye by causing coupling with couplers, which remain in the processed light-sensitive material after development processing. See European Patent Applications (unexamined published) 255,722, 258,662, 228,655, and 230,048 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,350. In particular, in the case of photographic record preservation wherein magenta color stains are visually very noticeable, even if the occurrence thereof is slight, they are a serious defect for light-sensitive materials, and it has been strongly desired to prevent the occurrence of such color stains together by utilizing the above proposed inhibition means with a stable storage of color images away from light, heat, and humidity for a long period of time. The inhibition means proposed above are not always sufficient for such long stable storage of color images.
Also, the aforesaid specific aniline compound can not always inhibit the occurrence of the color stain in the case of using the newly developed 2-equivalent magenta couplers and thus the development of new means for inhibiting the occurrence of the color stain has been desired.
Likewise, in the case of using the amine series compounds proposed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,555,479 and 4,585,728 and JP-A-58-102231 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), the coloring speed of the couplers are greatly reduced and, in particular, in photographic processing of a very short time, which has recently been strongly required, sufficient densities are not obtained by these amine series magenta couplers described in the aforesaid patents.
Furthermore, the 2-equivalent magenta couplers having a specific releasable group proposed in WO 88/4795 give serious magenta-like color stain due to the quick coloring speed and thus an improvement has been required.